Lish Wines is part of the Napa Valley based Brian David wine portfolio, founded by Brian David Kulich. In addition to Lish, this collection includes the brands: Brian David and glassMen. Brian sources grapes from a diversity of regions within California including Napa Valley, Russian River Valley, Central Coast and Santa Barbara. Lish is rooted in a previous brand, Big Cat (first vintage 2018) and is named in honor of Brian’s wife Alisha; he simply dropped both a’s from her first name.
Brian entered the hospitality business at an early age. He began working for Mountain Winery in Saratoga (San Francisco Bay Area) at age 16 through his father’s friend who owned the food and beverage licensing for this winery. He remembers serving at weddings during the day on weekends followed by concerts in the evenings. Mountain Winery is known for their popular live music events each year. After graduating with a degree in English from San Jose State he worked in restaurants in San Diego.
Eventually he moved back to northern California and worked at a number of restaurants in San Francisco including Grand Café, Aqua and Boulevard. He helped open OSO in Sonoma and was Senior Captain at the Restaurant at Meadowood. He assisted a number of premium restaurants design their wine lists including Kenzo in downtown Napa and the Omakase Restaurant group.
And after moving to Napa Valley, he became an Advanced Sommelier (Level 3) from the Court of Master Sommeliers.
Select Wines
With such a strong relationship between restaurants and wineries he has worked at in Napa Valley, and friendships cultivated based on time working in both spaces, Brian has access to a diversity of vineyards, under the radar availability of limited production wines already in barrel or in shiners from winemakers he personally knows. While not the winemaker, he participates in blending decisions. He bottles wines that are food friendly but are also crowd friendly.
And while working at Bouchon in Yountville, he was introduced to Neal Family Wines. He was impressed with proprietor, Mark Neal’s philosophy to bottle excellent wines at comfortable prices and Mark’s decision to hold his wine pricing steady as much as possible. This can be especially important when building a new brand as well as retaining customers through downturns in the economy.
Lish
The 2023 Lish Pinot Noir, Calesa Vineyard Petaluma Gap, Sonoma County is medium ruby; the aromatic profile is clearly on its fruit both on the bouquet and the palate; this is a California forward fruited style expression of the variety. No earthy, damp potting soil, mushroom, dank here. Its scents include raspberry, strawberry and plum with some finishing secondary aromatics from the barrel including mocha and coffee. Loaded with flavor, this wine tastes like dark raspberry, strawberry, red plum and pomegranate. The palate is soft both in terms of its acidity and its texture. The finish lingers with a plush profile, is rounded with lightly textured tannins and a subtle note of toasted oak. Its texture persists lightly beyond the fruit on the finish, felt more on the front of the palate. This wine was aged in 50% new French oak and was bottled at the end of January 2025; for reference, we tried this in mid September 2025. Only 140 cases were produced.
The 2023 Lish Cabernet Sauvignon is from Oakville and Mt. Veeder Cabernet and was blended with 5% Merlot and 3% Cabernet Franc. This wine is deep ruby and nearly opaque; the initial aromatics play in the space of espresso, dark cocoa powder and coffee grinds but give this wine time to open and its sweet fruit becomes highly expressive. Its scents include cherry pie, blackberry, baked plums, boysenberry, blueberry and dark chocolate with finishing light baking spices including a note of cinnamon. And loads of black fruit mirror the palate including dark cherry, blackberry and dark plum. On first sip the tannins are noticeable but not mouth filling, but by the 2nd or 3rd sip, their firm, broadly coating, dusty and chalky grip is noticeably felt across the palate, lingering for some time beyond the fruit. Despite pushing 15.0% alcohol, the vibrant acidity provides a youthful and refreshing character. This wine was bottled three months prior to our tasting; 150 cases were produced.
The artwork previously used on the Big Cat labels is also used on the Lish wines. Brian met Brooklyn based artist Jacob Thomas through one of Alisha’s friends. Thomas has worked with numerous prominent clients throughout his career including projects in the fashion industry. His creations are in part inspired by street art, pop art and contemporary culture. During part of his restaurant career, Brian worked with Thomas to create labels for several restaurant house wines. For those wines, he provided more exacting instructions on the type of label design he wanted.
The label on the Cabernet Sauvignon was simplified from a previous rendition. The doves hovering around the Griffith and the tiger, represent Alisha’s best friends. The son of one of her friends wrote the word ‘lish’ in crayon on a piece of paper four times. Brian circled the best looking letters from each of these four iterations and gave them to his designer. The name ‘lish’ is listed on the back label, an image of his simplistic writing.
glassMen
The inaugural release of glassMen was in 2023 including a Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from Sonoma County, both made by winemaker William Knuttel.
The 2023 glassMen Chardonnay Sonoma County was sourced from two vineyards in the Russian River Valley; this wine is medium gold in color. The bouquet immediately smells like the variety, with its catchy, ripe (but bright) and forward aromatics. And in case you are wondering, this is not an oaky expression of the variety. Its aromas are led by stone fruits including apricot, yellow peaches and nectarines along with glazed pineapple, golden delicious apples, honeycomb, butterscotch and melting butter. And the flavors somewhat mimic that of the bouquet including apricot, yellow peaches, ripe pineapple, Alphonse mango, ripe papaya, honeycomb and a finishing note of vanilla. The mouth feel features a fleshy and creamy texture. We love its overall cadence; it rolls across the palate as smoothly and gently as running one’s fingers across Thai silk. A vibrant thread of acidity running the length keeps the weightiness from ever feeling overtly heavy. The wine finishes richly flavored. Easy drinking but with loads of layering, this bottling falls into the crowd favorite category.
This Chardonnay was aged in 30% neutral/new French oak with the remainder in stainless steel vessels. A small portion went through malolactic fermentation. The idea behind this wine was to create a food friendly bottling, yet be fully expressive of California, a style that would be popular in restaurants for their by the glass programs, and be priced affordably, well over delivering for the price. And it clearly does.
The 2023 glassMen Pinot Noir Sonoma County. This wine is from grapes grown at the Parr Vineyard located in the southwest corner of Knights Valley. The property’s namesake, Kenneth Parr originally planted Pinot Noir clones Dijon and Joseph Swan selections in 1971. Fermentation included a light amount of stem inclusion followed by aging in French oak barrel for 20 months; this wine was bottled at the end of April 2025 and tasted in mid September that same year. Like the Chardonnay of the same vintage, the oak regiment for the aging of this wine included a combination of 30% new and neutral French oak barrels. The oak is meant to provide a gentle kiss rather than a strong hug. This wine is medium ruby; the nose shows some initial restraint and needs time to fully open. Its scents include red cherry, tomato skin, raspberry, and a light note of toast – the focus here is clearly on the purity of fruit with non-fruited aromas kept to a minimum. Bright, flavorful and balanced, this wine tastes like red cherry, cranberry, pomegranate and raspberry with a finishing note of sage. The palate features balanced acidity, balanced texture and balance in terms of its flavors; in summary, not one aspect of the palate dominates. The finish lingers with fully ripe, resolved and rounded tannins sporting a light creamy texture with a light gravelly/dusty character.
The wine is named in homage to Brian’s grandfather on his maternal side of the family, Benjamin (Ben or Benn) Glassman; he was a saxophone player during the Big Band Jazz era, performing with the likes of Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman. Benjamin ran away from home at at 14; his first musical gig was at one of Al Capone’s birthday parties in Chicago. In 1939 he wrote a booked called The “famoustyle” series of saxophone studies. Born and raised in Utah, he traveled the country for musical performances; eventually he settled along the Mendocino coast, in the tiny community of Little River where he sold real estate.
Brian remembers his house was built in part from pillars from an abandoned pier in Oakland. Benjamin was involved in so much more than just music. He founded the annual Fort Bragg Salmon BBQ, billed as, ‘the worlds largest salmon BBQ’. This event is still hosted in Fort Bragg every July. And along with his brothers Abe and Ellis were owners of what was called Elwoods, a small chain of women’s apparel department stores in the San Francisco Bay Area. The original Ellwood’s was founded by the Glassman brothers in 1937.
But then years later, Elwood’s transitioned into Mister G, a northern California women’s fashion department store chain. At their height of popularity in the 1960s they operated 8 women’s fashion stores including in San Jose, Oakland and Sacramento. The Mister G stores were operated and owned by Ben’s brothers Abe, Ellis and Jack Glassman with their headquarters, Glassman Bros., Inc., located at 1545 Telegraph Avenue in Oakland, CA.
Brian recalls hearing a family story about Mister G. During a promotion tour hosted by Chanel Paris, a large glass perfume bottle was shipped around the country in advance of their promotional stops. It was shipped to one of the Mister G stores. While moving the fragile bottle through one of the stores, one of Benjamin’s brothers lost control of the perfume bottle and it fell over and broke. End of tour. But something negative, even if it was unintentional, always generates publicity, in this case both for Chanel and for Mister G.
Brian was 8 when his grandfather passed away, but he admits he picked up his entrepreneurial spirit.
The glassMen label design was the creative work of Napa Valley based supremely talented artist and photographer Euan Rannachan. Euan is currently the Creative Director for Dakota Shy Winery in Napa Valley and the Mavericks Awards. He has also photographed prominent music festivals such as BottleRock and Aftershock. He use to be a photographer for the San Jose Sharks hockey team. But perhaps he is best known for his big wave surfing photography and intimate images of Great White sharks. And channeling his passion for the ocean he co-founded Be a Shark, an adventure and education company leading ocean safaris in Mexico.
During a winery hosted holiday party, Brian was talking to Euan about an idea for his new wine label. He mentioned his grandfather’s last name and both men began discussing a couple of ideas. Euan referenced stain glass windows. Months later Brian called Euan and reminded him of that conceptual visual. Initially they talked about incorporating the likeness of Brian’s grandfather on the label but ultimately settled for a classic look of a man playing a clarinet.
Brian David
The 2022 Brian David Chardonnay Russian River Valley is deep gold in color; balanced aromatics, especially with this variety, can indicate a balanced wine. By this we mean the aromas are not overly intense or over ripe nor are they delicate either. The bouquet offers scents of pineapple, honeycomb, apricot, baked apples and papaya. There is plenty of California sunshine expressed here, focusing on ripe but not over ripe fruit rather than secondary aromatics of oak and or butter. Balanced and bright, the palate offers flavors of Golden delicious apple, pineapple, yellow peach, mango and lemon curd. Its mouth feel is supple with a velvety character that glides across the palate. The finish is refreshing, showcasing lively and crisp acidity with a lingering note of hazelnut. This wine is 100% varietal, but a blend of 48% clone 4 and 52% clone 76. It was aged for 8 months in 20% new oak, 40% neutral oak and 40% in stainless steel.
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Total production of Brian David wines varies each year with most bottlings just a barrel or two of wine. Annual production of the Lish Wines is around 300 cases a year and is sold primarily direct to consumer other than select retail placements within the Napa Valley including sometimes at the Oxbow Wine Merchant in Oxbow Public Market. And there is one distributor who carries the wines in Las Vegas.
The glassMen wines are meant for distribution and are selectively distributed in 9 states including Georgia. For more information or to order wines, visit: www.briandavidwines.com
Mister G advertisement in the Peninsula Times, dated August 1968
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